


In The Meantime We Are Useful

by wildflowersoul



Series: Silent Sentinels [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War I, Dirty Talk, F/F, Female Bucky Barnes, Female Steve Rogers, Femslash, Genderswap, Historical Lady Spies, Lesbian Sex, Vaginal Fingering, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-07-20 02:14:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7386631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildflowersoul/pseuds/wildflowersoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are called to service by the US Government. There's a war on, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I got a commission.” Eve’s forehead puckered. 

“It pay well?” Bucky fussed over the tear in her stockings, it was no use, they would have to be chucked. They were good silk; she only had two pairs of them. She huffed and stabbed her needle into its pincushion with more force than necessary. 

Eve tsked and held her hand out. “40 cents a piece, to design posters for the War Office.” 

Bucky dropped the offending stocking into Eve’s palm. “How many posters you think they’ll need?” She rubbed her eyes. Her wrists and shoulders ached from hunching over her typewriter all day at the office. Mister Livingston, Esquire had mountains of correspondence and contracts that needed to be typed daily, and Bucky was glad for the work, it was better than a factory, but by the end of the day when her eyes were bloodshot and her body ached, she wondered how much better it really was. Plus, Livingston smelled like cigars and had a penchant for pinching her bottom. He also pinched Lily Abrams’ breasts, so Bucky supposed she got off lucky, of the two. 

“Dunno.” Eve’s slim fingers worked thread through the tear in the stocking. It left a jagged scar running up one side, but salvaged the pair to live on another day. “Maybe a lot. Don’t know what they need posters about enlisting for, when they’re calling men up whether they want to fight or not.” The needle poked into the meat of her thumb. “Ow!” 

Bucky reached over and pulled Eve’s thumb to her lips. She licked the bead of blood off and sucked the thumb between her teeth to stop the bleeding. 

Eve looked up with troubled eyes. “Emma Goldman’s bringing the draft case to court. I feel like I’m betraying my principles by taking this job.” 

“Principles can’t buy us eggs and sugar at Bob’s store. Principles still gotta live somewhere that costs rent.” Bucky examined Eve’s thumb. Satisfied that the needle prick would heal fine, she nibbled gently on the tips of Eve’s other fingers. “‘Sides, since when do you fall in step with Emma Goldman? Last I heard she didn’t think we should bother trying to get the vote.” 

“I know.” Eve shivered and pulled her hand away from Bucky’s mouth. “Tickles.” She grinned. “I don’t think it’s right to force men to go to war if they haven’t signed up for it. We do that, we’re no better than the Germans. America is the home of the free, that means something.” The crease between her eyebrows got increasingly deeper as she went on, and her cheeks pinked. “And they won’t even let women who _want_ to fight enlist. What’s the point of making men who don’t want to fight when there are some women who would willingly take their place?” 

“You’re so beautiful when you have the fire of righteous indignation burning in your eyes.” Bucky cupped Eve’s face in her hands. 

“Don’t make fun, Buck. I’ve been tying myself in knots over this all day.” 

“I know, and I’m not making fun.” Bucky stroked her thumb over Eve’s cheekbone. “You shouldn’t do it if it’s going to weigh on you forever. We can get by on my wages from Livingston. I can pick up some other work on Sundays, Lord knows there’s plenty of jobs wanting for workers now.” _Now that the men are shipping off to Europe,_ she almost adds. 

Eve sighed like the weight of the world was pressing on her tiny shoulders. “I’m gonna do it. I just needed to talk it out first.” She nuzzled into Bucky’s palm, moving her head so Bucky’s fingers tangled in her hair. Bucky pressed her fingertips into Eve’s scalp, rubbing the tension away. “That feels nice,” Eve murmured, nestling closer. 

“You’re like a cat,” Bucky said into her hair. “All hissing and spitting, but rub you the right way and you’re mine forever.” 

Eve snorted. “Sure have a way with words.” She arched into the touch and opened her eyes. “You’re right about one thing, though.” Bucky raised her eyebrows. “I’m yours forever.” Eve gave her a dopey, doe-eyed grin.

“Hush up.” Bucky drew Eve’s face closer and kissed her. She kept it sweet and soft, even though Eve’s words were buzzing around in her body like punch drunk bees. Eve smelled like the charcoal pencils she’d been drawing with earlier. She leaned into the kiss, darting her tongue out to trace Bucky’s lower lip. 

Bucky felt buoyant; Eve’s commission would ease some of the constantly growing ledger that gnawed at the back of her mind, and she had Eve Rogers in her lap, nibbling on her lip and squirming like she was ready to start something. 

Eve reached between them and deftly opened the buttons on Bucky’s shirt. She traced the swell of Bucky’s breasts that spilled over the top of her corset, biting her lip in concentration as she pulled on the laces that ran down the front of the undergarment. It was loosely laced, a layer of basic support that still allowed Bucky to move without gasping for breath. Eve’s fingers tugging on the laces stole Bucky’s breath, so at the end of the day it didn’t matter much. Eve had made the corset for Bucky, after hearing her complain that she couldn’t type all day while her insides were being rearranged. 

“That’s better,” Eve said as she flicked the corset open. Bucky’s breasts spilled out into Eve’s waiting hands. Both women groaned at the same time as Eve palmed Bucky, so warm and soft and full. 

“C’mere,” Bucky said hoarsely, pulling Eve half onto her lap. Her head swam with the dizziness of want, insistent and consuming. She kissed a line down Eve’s neck, moved up to suck her earlobe between her lips. 

Eve was panting already, grinding herself on Bucky’s thigh. She shifted her weight so her knee was positioned just in front of Bucky’s crotch, leaving it as an offering, not a demand. Her skirt was tangled around her calves and bunched along her thighs. “Buck,” she whined, moving her head so their lips met again. 

“I got you, pumpkin. Just take what you need.” Bucky held Eve steady and rocked her thigh up to meet Eve’s undulations. Bucky anchored herself with her hands on Eve’s hips, she was so turned on her nerves were lit like gasoline fires, and she let her head fall back as Eve’s squeaks of pleasure became increasingly desperate. 

“Wait, I gotta-” Eve almost sounded drunk, her voice thick and syrupy. She fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. “No, no, I gotta do this,” she said, batting Bucky’s fingers away. Her hands shook, but she got the last button open and gave a triumph little _ha_. Eve wore nothing under her shirt, her breasts were pert and mostly just rosy nipples, standing at attention. She leaned forward so the hard points of their breasts touched. Bucky shuddered at the contact. 

Now it was too much to bear without moving. Bucky inched her hips forward until she connected with Eve’s knee. Eve smiled wickedly down at her. Eve was riding her thigh, bearing down and moaning so indecently, Bucky felt the sounds reverberate deep inside. Two layers of skirts rumpled around their hips and knees made it hard for Bucky to chase the friction she needed. But Eve was pressing their breasts together, and Bucky was feeling tight and full as a dam ready to burst, and they were both making noises now that sounded like gasps fighting with groans. Eve lost it first, biting down on her lip and falling onto Bucky, shaking helplessly in Bucky’s arms as her orgasm overtook her. 

Bucky waited a polite minute, maybe two minutes—it felt like a fucking hour while she was hot and dripping and so close. She ground herself on Eve’s knee, but it wasn’t enough, and the angle was all wrong now. Eve gave a small, wrecked chuckle and shifted to the side. She smoothed her hand over Bucky’s breasts, tweaked her nipples, hard. 

Bucky hissed. “Vixen,” she said, almost crying with how bad she needed it. Eve set her small white teeth around one nipple and moved her hand down, over the swell of Bucky’s hips, sinking finally into her pussy. It was so good, so perfect, Bucky stopped breathing, everything focused on the one small point where the tip of Eve’s finger was working in excruciating slow circles. “Oh god,” Bucky whispered. “Oh god, oh god, no, it’s too good, Eve, please, you’re so good.” Bucky rocked her hips in time with Eve’s movements, strung out on the edge. Eve kept the same tortuous pace, ignoring the way Bucky’s hips rose higher and faster, goading her. “Please, Eve, you gotta let me come, I need it so bad.” 

Eve worked her teeth gently over Bucky’s nipple. “I know what you need, baby. I’m giving it to you so good, just like you deserve. A little longer, you know you like it when you’ve been panting for it all night.” 

Just because she was right didn’t mean that Bucky wasn’t going to levitate off the couch from the tension coiled up inside her. More than the touching, though, was the deadly effect Eve’s filthy mouth had on her. 

“That’s it, just like that.” Eve didn’t change her pressure or speed, but all of a sudden it all caught up to her and Bucky was coming like a freight train thundering through a tunnel. 

Bucky stifled her scream with her mouth clamped onto Eve’s shoulder. She jerked against Eve’s hand, spasming and losing every ounce of control she had. 

“Good, good, that’s right, give it all to me now. My perfect girl.” Eve kissed her forehead and held her through the aftershocks, running her free hand over Bucky’s hair. 

When Bucky could see straight again she lifted her head and saw Eve sucking on the fingers that had just been inside her. “Oh god, Eve, Jesus,” Bucky said weakly. The sight was enough to get her going again, if she had an inhuman amount of energy to draw on. She needed probably a week to recover from a wringing orgasm like that. 

Eve shrugged and smiled beatifically. “You taste good, Buck.” 

Bucky rolled to the side and lolled her head against Eve’s shoulder. “I’m serious, you know. You don’t have to do the posters if you don’t want to.” 

Eve twirled a finger through Bucky’s hair. “I know. If we’re gonna have to see these things up all over town, might as well make sure they look nice. ‘Sides, Christmas’ll be here before you know it, I gotta have a few pennies to rub together to get you something. Like a new pair of stockings.” She pushed at Bucky. “Get off, I gotta wash up before bed.” 

______________________

The next day, Bucky got her own commission from the United States government. The letter sat innocuously on the table, plain brown envelope, postmark from Washington. 

_Dear Miss Barnes,_

_We met in August at Saint Elizabeth’s. Forgive me the intrusion into your affairs, as I am quite sure you were overjoyed to leave behind the unfortunate circumstances of our meeting two months ago. I, however, have been of troubled mind in several respects, not the least of which was your friend’s mistreatment under the auspices of law enforcement and medicine. I beg your forgiveness, the both of you, for the wretched situation that befell Miss Rogers. With that water barely under the bridge, I importune upon you a much bigger favor than forgiveness. Miss Barnes, never have I met a woman with more steadfast loyalty and courage under adversity than yourself. Your country requires your service, in this, our time of greatest need. I have arranged with Mr. Livingston an hour of time for us to meet tomorrow, at one o’clock. I will call at his office for you. Until we meet again, I remain,_

_Your servant,_

_Thomas Healey_

Instinctively, Bucky crumpled the letter and put it in the kindling bucket. It had been on the table, surely Eve had wondered who it was from when she laid it there. Bucky couldn’t stand the thought of reliving that horrible scene in the hospital, when she rescued Eve from a brutal force-feeding that was clearly the culmination of a day of abuse. 

_Her country requires her service._ Her country had a lot of nerve issuing requirements when it wouldn’t give her the courtesy of a vote. 

___________________________

“Miss Barnes.” The man in a crisp blue suit standing in front of her was the orderly she had brushed by in her haste to find Eve at Saint Elizabeth’s. He’d followed her through the hallways and looked on, without trying to stop her, when she’d finally found Eve. How he was now an emissary of the federal government was a mystery. He pinched his hat between his fingers and swept it off with a chivalric flourish. His hair was brown and shiny, and he smelled like Rexall hair tonic. 

Bucky took her time finishing the row she was typing, and hit the carriage return lever with more force than was necessary. “Mister Healey,” she said, meeting his expectant stare. 

“May we…?” He inclined his head toward the door. 

Bucky glanced at Livingston’s closed door. 

“It’s been arranged,” the man said. “But by all means, do not take my word for it.” 

“If you’re opening this conversation with a lie, I suppose I’d prefer to find out sooner than later,” Bucky said crisply. She rose, ignoring his proffered hand. 

“Miss Barnes,” he began when they were out the door. “You’re a sharp girl, I’ll spare you the pleasantries. We are training a very small group of promising young women to perform intelligence missions in Europe.” He spoke quietly, as they walked the busy sidewalk. 

“You want to train me to be a spy?” Bucky, to her credit, kept her voice as modulated as Thomas’. “To go to war?” She schooled her face to impassivity, as her heart hammered in her chest. The idea gave her a visceral thrill, just for a moment, until more practical matters countered the adrenaline spike. She shook her head. “It’s ridiculous, of course, I could never.” 

Thomas took her elbow gently to steer her around a pile of garbage, half rotten and stinking to high heaven. He dropped her arm immediately once they cleared it. “Your, ah, friend,” he said delicately, “will be taken care of. I’ve submitted the paperwork for an E. Grant Rogers to receive your paychecks. Compensation will include a hardship wage. It’s a quite generous wage, more than our boys on the front lines receive.” He looked at her, shrewdly. “You don’t object conscientiously, do you?” 

Bucky gave him a long, searching look. “You’re entirely serious, aren’t you?” 

“Miss Barnes, I came up from Washington to speak with you while our country ships men off to France. I assure you, I am the very picture of seriousness.” 

“When I saw you two months ago you were an orderly at a mental institution. Now you’re recruiting spies for the war? Women spies, of all things? How do you expect me to even believe you work for the government?” 

He grinned and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his breast pocket. “I was hoping you’d ask.” He handed the paper to her. It was stamped with a raised seal depicting a spear, a bayonet, and two flags. It read _United States of America War Office_ around the symbols. The paper itself instructed the reader that Thomas Healey was an agent of the U.S. Department of War, with full authority from the Secretary of War to negotiate and contract on behalf of the government. It was signed Newton D. Baker. 

Bucky passed the paper back to him. 

“I was at the hospital working on an assignment for the War Office. It’s all quite classified. As is our conversation. Whether you accept or not, I’m afraid you can’t ever speak of this meeting to a soul.” Thomas stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. A harried looking woman carrying a baby grumbled as she almost walked into him, two small children trailing behind her. Bucky looked around and tugged him into an unoccupied alley between a telegraph office and a printing press. 

“How much?” Bucky asked. 

“Twenty dollars a week. That’s a damn sight better than what you bring home from Livingston.” Thomas had the decency to look slightly queasy at the powerful effect the promise of that kind of money had on Bucky. 

Her eyebrows rose halfway to her hairline. “Twenty a week?” That would pay the rent and keep Eve fed and warm through the winter. She’d even have enough left over for art supplies and as many sheets of paper she could wish for. How could Bucky dream of saying no to an offer like that? 

She took his hand and gripped it firmly. “Mr. Healey, we have a deal. How long do I have until I ship out?” 

Thomas gaped at her. “Well, uh, we’d like to train you first, in Washington. Training’s about a week, should be longer, but given the situation in Europe, everyone is shipping out before they’re truly ready.” He leveled his brown eyes at her. “Shipping out in two weeks.” He fished in his pocket, which must have been more capacious than it appeared on the outside. He pulled out a train ticket and pressed it into her hand. “I will meet you personally at Union Station. Bring a small bag of clothing, nothing ostentatious.” Bucky stared at the ticket in her hand. She had five days to tell Eve that she was leaving, five days to make arrangements and prepare for the possibility that this may be the last time she ever lays eyes on Brooklyn again. 

Thomas nudged her forward, back in the direction of Livingston’s office. They walked in silence until they reached the office door. 

“Until we meet again, Miss Barnes.” 

Bucky just looked at him and nodded. Her mouth had gone dry with dread at what she had agreed to do. 

_____________________

Eve slapped a newspaper on the table. The headline read _Woman Dancer Shot By French As Spy._ “That’s what happens to spies. Remember Edith Cavell?” Eve’s hand trembled as she pointed at the article. 

“It won’t be like that. I’ll be working the telephone lines, maybe patching up a few wounded soldiers, and writing letters. I won’t be at the front lines. It’s just that men talk so freely around women.” Bucky batted her eyes. “We don’t understand any of that complicated army talk.” 

Eve was still staring at the newspaper with an unreadable expression. “I want to go with you,” she said quietly. 

“What?” Bucky should have known better, should have kept the note of incredulity out of her voice. “You can’t. Eve—” The words _look at you_ caught in her throat. 

“You think I’m not strong enough to do it.” Eve turned away from the table, she couldn’t even look at Bucky. “You think I’m too small and frail and sick.”

Bucky’s blood curdled at the pain in Eve’s voice. “Eve Grant Rogers. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met in my life.” 

Eve scoffed and sniffled. The tip of her nose was red.

“If you think for one second that I don’t believe you could do a better job at this than I can, you’re a complete dingbat. But there’s no way I could be over there and concentrate on anything if I knew you were there, too, in danger. It’d be all I would think about.” Bucky walked around the table and put her hands on Eve’s shoulders. “I could only go if I knew you were safe. Give me something to live for while I’m there, the thought of coming back to you.” Bucky wheedled in that way she knew got under Eve’s skin. “Who would write to me if you were off on secret missions? Who would I have to write to? I’d be awful lonely.” 

Eve rubbed her nose and brushed her hand over her eyes, wiping away the tears that had leaked out. “You can’t come home and tell me you’re going to _Europe_ , to _war_ , as a _spy_ , and expect me to be keen on it, just like that.” 

“I don’t expect you to be keen on it. I don’t.” Bucky rested her chin on the top of Eve’s head. “But you know it would kill me if you were over there, too?” 

“And it won’t kill me to sit here, doing nothing, wondering when I’m going to get a letter telling me you’re dead?” Eve broke away from her grasp. Her voice was wild. “I won’t even get a letter. I’m not your next of kin. I’m not kin. How would I even know? Will I read it in the paper? Or will I just eventually give up on waiting? A year past the war’s end? Five years? Buck, I’ll be here waiting for you until—” Eve looked at the newspaper on the table, stricken. “Until the end of the line. You know I will.” 

“Hey. Hey.” Bucky skirted around the table, hovering just beyond Eve’s reach. “It’s not gonna be like that. I promise.” 

Eve snorted. “It’s a goddamned war. There are no promises.” Tears rolled down her face. “You get to just decide to do this, and I have no say. Can’t even want to join you.” 

Bucky pulled her into a hug. She rubbed Eve’s back and didn’t try to fight her own tears. It wasn’t fair, she knew it. But she had an opportunity to really take care of Eve, with the money that’s been promised, and she’d be good, real good, at this, she just knew it. And there was a small secret place in Bucky’s heart that thrilled to the idea of espionage. She’d seen so many advertisements for detective agencies in the city directory, and she’d always had a hopeless wish that she could do something like that instead of typing other people’s words all day. Eve had her art; Bucky was talented at people. Reading people, getting people to trust her with her bright eyes and easy smile. 

They held each other, sobbing quietly as their hearts broke for each other. “I’ll miss you so much.” Eve sniffled miserably. 

“Not half as much as I’ll miss you.” Bucky kissed her forehead. “I’ll come back and this terrible war will be over, and we’ll be able to vote, and you’ll be a famous artist. You won’t hardly have time for little me.” 

Eve tugged Bucky’s head down and kissed her, bruising both their mouths. “You’ll come back,” she murmured against Bucky’s lips, “you’ll come back.” 

“‘Course I will.” Bucky tasted salt from their tears, it stung a tiny crack in her bottom lip. “I can’t leave half my heart here forever. Just take real good care of it while I’m gone.” Her voice cracked on the last word, she wasn’t strong enough not to break from the weight of their desperation.

They fell asleep that night in a tangle of limbs, curled up on each other. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The train rocked so hard Bucky was sure it would tip over off the track. They’d been shelled almost constantly since they crossed the border from France into Belgium. Soot blacked out the windows, and it smelled like something had caught fire further down the train. Bucky’s heart pounded in time with the clacking of the train wheels. 

“Hard to believe, but you do get used to it.” The woman at Bucky’s side gave her shoulder a reassuring pat. Agnes Meyer had been working at the front lines for four months, which hardly seemed like enough time to get used to deadly mortars blasting trains. Agnes was short but built tough, with her hair wound in a tight braid coiled on top of her head, and she had a no-nonsense set to her jaw that made Bucky’s heart ache with longing for Eve. 

Bucky gave a shaky laugh. She could see why the women she’d met over the past week all had a sense of humor dark as the night they were pushing relentlessly through. “Only another forty minutes until we get to Jemappes, right?” 

Agnes nodded. “The car will be waiting for us there. You’re doing well, Jane. We’ve had a handful of recruits panic before even leaving France. Had to send them back home. It’s a lot easier to get women over here than it is to send them back across the Atlantic.”

“It’s Bucky. You can call me that, I mean. I hear Jane and look around for a nun with a paddle.” 

“Funny nickname,” Agnes said. “My friends call me Aggie.”

“My middle name’s Buchanan. My parents really wanted a boy.” 

“Don’t they all.” Agnes gave her a rueful smile. “Bet they didn’t bargain on sending a daughter off to war.” 

Bucky’s mouth twisted. “They’re both dead. My ma passed three years ago. Barely knew my pop.” 

“I’m sorry,” Agnes murmured. “You got a fella in the trenches? My Mikey’s in Washington. I think I’ll see more action than he will.” 

Bucky thought of Eve, imagined her golden hair bent over a poster, ink staining her wrists. “No fella. Haven’t met the right one yet, I ‘spose.” 

Another blast hit the train. The world outside the dark windows lit up firey orange for a moment. 

“Come play cards with us in the dining car. It won’t really help, but there’s no reason to be alone while we ride through hell.” Agnes— Aggie — led Bucky to the car where the rest of the women sat hunched together over dining car tables, laughing sharp and loud in the weak flickering light. 

__________

The train finally rumbled into the station at Jemappes, a small hamlet not far from German-held Mons. Bucky fingered her Saint Christopher medal as she stepped onto the platform. 

“Ladies.” Aggie led Bucky and four other women to a black motorcar that sported several deep pockmarks on its doors. They squeezed in tight while Aggie slid behind the wheel. Clara, a freckled redhead from Chicago, waved to the women they left behind on the platform, nurses, mostly. 

The car bounced along, jarring them every so often by slamming through deep divots in the road. The town gave way to woods. It was a couple of hours past dawn; thin wisps of mist clung to the underbrush and ghosted eerily between trees, and the only sound was the rumble of tires on the rough dirt road. Clara gazed out her window. Bucky sat wedged next to her, with Mary to her right and Ida at the other window. Mary was a willowy math whiz who’d graduated from Radcliffe College in the spring. Ida was quiet and bit her fingernails when she thought no one was looking. She worried her thumbnail between her teeth as a whitewashed farmhouse appeared at the end of the driveway. 

Inside the house, a fine layer of dust covered everything. Bucky brushed cobwebs from the newel post of the staircase leading to the second floor. Whoever had lived here before the war had left in a hurry. Sacks of flour and sugar in the kitchen spilled their contents on the counter through holes gnawed by mice. A half dozen eggs were lined up, surely long since spoiled. Ida sloshed a milk jug that was on the flagstone floor, and made a moue of distaste when the contents sounded half solid. 

“The five of us will have this place ship-shape in just a few days.” Aggie already seemed like a formidable den mother. Bucky had no doubt they’d be done cleaning and restocking in short order. 

“Where will we get food?” Mary asked. 

“My contact in Jemappes, Pierre, will make deliveries here every Friday. He'll take your correspondence as well. It must be posted from a hospital across the border in France, and the censors can take some time before sending letters back home, but you will be allowed to write to your families, and receive their letters.” Aggie leaned over the kitchen sink to look out the window. “There’s a garden out back, so we’ll have have fresh vegetables. The chicken coop needs to be patched up. I’ll have Pierre procure a few chickens next week.” 

Clara rustled in a cabinet and came up with a handful of rags. She said something incomprehensible in German. 

Aggie nodded approvingly. “Let’s get started, ladies. Clara will start your German lessons while we clean. Two birds, one stone.” 

__________

“We need to get this to Ypres, fast. It may already be too late.” Mary looked up from the scrap of paper she’d been hunched over.

Ida smoothed the feathers on the plump pigeon that had landed in her aviary on the roof. Her birds flew messages around France and Belgium, holding paper in capsules fastened around their legs. “He can’t fly again now, look at the poor little guy.” The bird trembled under her hand, exhausted from its flight. 

Bucky stood up from the table, rolling up a map. “I’ll go.” As valuable as decoding intercepted transmissions was to the cause, she was itching to do more than paperwork.. 

Mary raised one eyebrow. “You plan to just drive through the German lines?” 

Bucky shrugged. “I can’t fly there.” 

“That’s crazy.” Ida fed a handful of seeds to the pigeon, who started cooing into her palm. “The war’s not gonna be won or lost on one message. Let it go, Bucky.” 

Mary clenched her pencil. “I’ll go with you,” she said. Her brown eyes dared Bucky to challenge her. 

Bucky wasn’t about to say something like, “it’ll be dangerous.” That much was obvious. So she said, “Pack up some food and water, I’ll tell Aggie.” 

Mary bounded up, her pencil clattering to the floor. She was only three years younger than Bucky, but her unbridled enthusiasm for the work they did made all the women feel a motherly protectiveness of her. She paused at the doorway. “You’re not worried about—” she waved a hand in front of her face, grudgingly indicating her dark skin. 

Bucky crossed the room to her and tucked a pistol into the waist of Mary’s skirt. “Not one tiny bit. C’mon, we’ve got a mission to prepare.” She practically ran to Aggie’s desk in the back room of the house to tell her about the message. 

Aggie pursed her lips. “Mary’s the best code breaker I’ve met. Bring her back safe.” 

Bucky gave her a wide smile. “We’ll be back in a jiff.” 

Aggie sighed dramatically. “Barnes, you could talk Satan himself into the front pew of church with that smile. Take double the rations you think you need, and for God’s sake, take your guns and ammunition.” 

“Yes, Captain.” Bucky gave her a quick salute. 

“We have a network in Tournai that can get the message the rest of the way to Ypres. Go to the back door of the bakery, Toussaint’s, and tell the delivery boy you need ten gallons of cream delivered tomorrow. He’ll respond that will be fifty francs. Give him the message in this envelope.” Aggie handed her a cream colored envelope and a plug of blue wax. Bucky would seal the envelope before leaving, with the official United States War Office seal. 

“See you tonight, Miss Aggie,” Bucky said with a toothy grin. 

“Oh, and Jane? Buy a loaf of bread at the bakery while you’re there. Scones, too.” 

__________

Bucky slung herself into the driver’s seat of the motorcar, adjusted the throttle and pulled the handbrake. Mary crouched by the fender and cranked the lever until the engine coughed to life. She gave a triumphant whoop and ran around to the passenger seat, holding her straw boater hat to her head. Bucky tucked a pistol under her seat, and Mary followed suit. They had a basket of food in the back seat, a cheery red and white checked blanket folded neatly next to it, and a story about going on a picnic ready to deploy. Of course, no reasonable person would believe that two women, American women at that, would be venturing through the Belgian battlefields for a picnic. No doubt the pistols would come out before the story. 

“Which way do I go?” Bucky asked at the end of the drive. 

Mary studied their map with her tongue between her teeth. “West. About thirty kilometers.” 

The car whined and huffed and clanked its way over the rough dirt road. It sounded louder than a guilty conscience, and it jostled both women until their backsides were sore, especially when broad tank tracks crossed the road. The forest on either side thinned out until it was a desolate swamp, skeletal trees reaching their limbs heavenward in surrender. 

Their contact at the bakery was a skinny teenaged boy. He opened the back door and looked at them with a bored expression. 

“I need ten gallons of cream. Delivered tomorrow. Uh, please?” Bucky slid her fingers along the crease of the envelope. 

“Fifty francs,” the boy replied. 

Bucky handed him the envelope. He started to slam the door shut before she could take a breath. “Wait! Can we buy some bread, while we’re here?” 

“And scones,” Mary added. She wedged her foot in the door, then pushed it open with her elbow. 

The boy grunted a very French sort of noise in the back of his throat, and handed the envelope to an older man who was frowning at a ledger book in the bakery’s back office. The man looked up at them. “Mademoiselles!” He bent to shuffle through a drawer on the side of his desk, and came up with a sheaf of papers. Bucky looked at Mary and raised an eyebrow. 

“I have some correspondence for your Miss Agatha.” 

Bucky reached for the papers. “You mean Agnes?” 

“Oui, oui, Miss Agnes. Of course.” He picked up a smoldering cigarette and took a deep drag. “Now, you must purchase your bread and be gone, the road, it is dangerous for women to be out alone. The Germans—” he shuddered. 

The sullen teenager returned with three loaves of bread and a small gingham sack of scones. “Seventy centimes,” he said, pushing the bread into Mary’s arms. 

Mary fished in her pocket with her free hand and plinked some coins into the boy’s waiting hand. 

“Good day,” Bucky said as she and Mary left the bakery. 

“Bucky,” Mary said, studying the papers in her hand intently. “This says there’s a doctor who’s been developing a super soldier elixir. He’s being held by the Germans in a chateau near Mons. It says rescue protocol must be activated immediately.” 

Bucky leaned over her shoulder and peered at the paper. “Abraham Erskine. Efforts at elixir have been successful. Patient S unstable and extremely dangerous.” She rocked back on her heels and met Mary’s eyes. “No one would expect a coupla dames to storm a chateau.” 

“Barnes, you batty broad.” Mary’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “You think we can do it?” 

“Only one way to find out.” Bucky hopped into the car, Mary following after she cranked the engine. 

__________

The chateau was something straight out of a fairy tale book. Towers topped with conical roofs flanked the sides of the building, and pointy roof peaks studded the top of the building. Bucky half expected to see Rapunzel lowering her hair out a tower window. Bucky and Mary ditched the car a quarter mile away from the chateau and picked their way through the thicket on the side of the road. Their skirts constantly caught and pulled on brambles. 

“It looks abandoned,” Mary whispered. The chateau did look overgrown and uncared for. 

A metallic click behind them stopped the two women short. Bucky laid a hand on Mary’s arm before turning to the sound. A woman with shoulder length brown hair pointed a very serious looking gun at them. “I’m quite sure you ladies are lost,” she said in a crisp British accent. 

“Not at all,” Mary said breezily. “We’re paying a call on our dear cousin.” 

The English woman arched a perfectly shaped brow at them. “What is your dear cousin’s name?” 

“Abraham,” Bucky said. “Abraham Erskine.” 

The woman pursed her lips. “Erskine.” She uncocked her gun and lowered it. “I should have guessed the Americans wouldn’t be able to sit this one out. It’s goddamn amateur hour out here.” She nodded toward the chateau. “He’s in the basement. Schmidt is holding him captive, I don’t know if he’s even working for the Germans or if this is personal. The elixir worked, though not as we hoped. It made Schmidt strong, fast, and unstoppable, but it amplified his personality as well. Needless to say, his personality is the biggest problem we face.” 

“What should we do?” Mary asked. 

“You two create a diversion. I’ll go down and retrieve Erskine. We’re evacuating him to America.” The woman started walking toward the chateau, not bothering to stay to the side in the thicket. “And ladies,” she called over her shoulder, “try not to get shot.” 

“Try not to get shot,” Mary grumbled, yanking her skirt free from another thorny bush. “You have any ideas on how to create a diversion?” 

Bucky watched the English woman striding away. “We need the car.” She tugged on Mary’s arm to wheel her around. “Fast as we can!” The two women broke into a run back down the dirt drive. 

The motorcar sputtered to life under their frantic hands. Bucky drove it pell mell down the drive, wincing at every pop of the engine as she pushed the gas pedal down harder and harder. They sped to the front door of the chateau, Bucky punched the brake at the last moment and pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, swerving the car to the side in a loud squeal of protesting tires and engine. 

Bucky leapt out of the car and ran to bang loudly on the front door. “Help! Help!”

A severe looking man in a German uniform leaned out of a window above the door. He spat out a brutal string of German that Bucky half understood, from her hasty German lessons at the farmhouse. A few words stood out as particularly creative invectives she’d picked up from neighbors in Brooklyn. 

“Oh, sir! Thank God someone is home! Tu parles Anglais? Du sprichst Englisch?” 

“Keine!” he snarled, shoving the window down. 

Bucky knocked the door again, shouting “Sir! Sir! We need help! Hilfe!” 

The window opened again, the muzzle of a rifle poked through to point at her. The man fired a shot that pocked the ground a foot away from her. 

“Bucky!” Mary cried. She’d taken over the driver’s seat of the auto and turned it to face the long drive. “Get in!” 

The English woman rounded the corner of the chateau, feet pounding the ground, with a bespectacled man trailing behind her. They raced to the car and flung themselves in, and Bucky pulled herself in as Mary started to drive. Shots pinged off the car as they drove away. The English woman yelled “Duck!” as a bullet whizzed inches over their heads. 

Mary drove like the devil was on their heels, until they found themselves at the train station in Jemappes. 

The English woman pulled the man, presumably Erskine, out of the car. “Nice work, ladies.” She smiled at them. “I’m Agent Peggy Carter. You’ve done our countries a great service today.” 

“Mary Gibson,” Mary said, pointing at herself, then at Bucky, “and Jane Barnes.” 

Bucky grinned, feeling the tension and nerves releasing from her body. Her hands shook from the adrenaline rush. “See you around, Agent Carter.” 

The woman winked at her. “Let’s hope not, Barnes. Godspeed you both, may this war see us returned home by the new year.” 

*****************

The War Office in Manhattan was an unassuming storefront office with a big glass window lettered with the office name and address. A young man sat at a desk clacking away on a typewriter. 

Eve shrugged an oversized poster board out of the straps she used to hold it on her back for the trip from Brooklyn. She was sweating from the exertion of walking across the bridge and up twenty blocks, even though the late fall air bit through her thin sweater. 

The man didn’t even look up from his typewriter. “Bring it out back.” He inclined his head toward a door behind him. 

Eve raised her eyebrows. “You don’t need to know who I am?” 

“Ain’t no skinny little dame gonna blow up the War Office,” he said derisively. 

Eve pressed her palms onto his desk and leaned over the typewriter. “If I were the Kaiser a skinny little dame is exactly who I’d send to blow up the War Office.” 

She got right up in his face, ignoring the smell of rye bread and spicy mustard lingering from his lunch. He pushed back in his chair, the legs grated against the floor. “Listen, lady, I got hours of paperwork here. You wanna drop off your poster about victory gardens, take it out back and scram.”

A door to her right swung open and a woman with brown hair tucked into a loose Gibson roll strode out. She wore a military cut olive jacket and matching skirt. She was tall, towering over Eve, though not quite as much as Bucky did, and she held herself with the straight backed authority that spoke of a person used to giving orders. She flipped Eve’s poster around and gave it a brief once-over. Eve flushed at the painting of cucumbers, lettuce heads, and tomatoes. It was a victory garden poster, and everything about it reminded Eve that she was painting uselessly in Brooklyn while Bucky was somewhere in Europe doing god only knew what. The woman’s eyes lingered on Eve’s signature at the bottom of the poster. 

“Miss Rogers?” Her accent was rich and plummy.

Eve squared her shoulders. “Yes.” 

“Come with me.” The woman left the poster leaning against the front desk and strode back through the open door. 

Eve followed her into a small office. The air was thick with the fug of cigarette smoke, and a still-burning cigarette rested in an ashtray on the desk. Eve’s lungs spasmed; she immediately started coughing violently. 

“Oh dear,” the woman murmured, taking Eve by the elbow and forcing her back out through the door. Eve’s eyes watered as she stumbled along, hacking and gasping. 

“This will not do,” the woman said. 

Eve shook her head, pulling as much air into her lungs as she could. “No, I’m fine, it’s nothing.” Her voice was a thick croak. She pressed a hand to her chest and willed her lungs to expand like a normal, healthy person’s. 

A small smile quirked up the corners of the woman’s mouth. “You don’t quit, do you?” 

“No ma’am.” 

“My name is Peggy Carter. My good friend Miss Branham wrote to me about you, said you have the kind of spirit we can use.” Peggy tapped her fingers against her skirt. “You don’t want to spend the war painting pictures of vegetables, do you?” 

Eve shook her head so fast her hair fell loose from its knot. “I’m ready to serve, Miss Carter. My friend Bucky, I mean, Jane, she’s over in Europe right now, you can send me over and she’ll show me the ropes, we’ll be the best team you’ve ever laid eyes on.” The words spilled out of her mouth. 

Peggy gave her a severe look. “Do you tell everyone you’ve just met that your friend is serving in Europe?” 

A hot flush washed over Eve. Her eyes widened. “No, no, not anyone but you.” She gestured weakly at the war office. “I thought…” 

“Mind your mouth. The walls have ears, and our girls are a precious resource. Besides, some people,” she gave a pointed look inside at the clerk, “don’t approve of women’s involvement in the effort. Come with me.” She took Eve by the crook of her elbow and steered her down the street. 

Peggy talked low and fast. “There’s an experimental program. So top secret even the President doesn’t know about it. If I tell you about it, and you decide not to participate, you’ll have to work with me at the War Office so I can keep an eye on you.” She gave Eve an unsubtle once-over. “I think you’ll like what I have to offer you.” 

Eve shivered and clutched her worn lavender sweater closer to herself. Bucky had given her the sweater for her birthday six years ago. “Will this program give me an opportunity to go overseas and serve our country?” 

Peggy chuckled grimly. “It will certainly do that.” 

“Then I accept.” 

Peggy led her to an alley in the Lower East Side. They sidestepped reeking piles of fetid garbage and sheets strung up to create makeshift tents for people living rough. She removed a ring of keys from her pocket and opened an unmarked door. Peggy went in first, and Eve followed, shutting the door tight behind them. They were in a dim room not much bigger than a closet, with just a bare overhead bulb emitting faint yellow light. Peggy rapped sharply on the wall to their right, and it swung open to reveal stone steps leading down into a basement. More naked electric bulbs spaced begrudgingly far apart provided just enough light to allow the women to pick their way downstairs without tumbling down and breaking their necks. Eve had never been anywhere half as creepy before in her life, and held a secret thrill at it in her heart. 

The stairs bottomed out into a large, surprisingly well-lit room. Scientific equipment was arranged around the room haphazardly, some obviously in mid-use, some discarded and gathering dust. 

“Aw, Pegs, you brought me a skirt! You know this procedure is experimental.” A man wearing big round goggles looked up from a menacing iron tank that looked like a hyperbaric chamber. He had dark brown hair that stuck straight up from his head. Eve could see how that happened as he pushed the goggles up and fisted his hands in his hair. “She looks thinner than a sheet of paper. This contraption’ll break her in half. Unacceptable. I won’t do it. Return from whence you came.” He spoke so fast his words almost garbled, and he made a vague shooing gesture at them when he finished. 

Peggy strode over and took the screwdriver out of his hands. Her jaw was set in a stubborn line that was all too familiar to Eve, though she wasn’t used to seeing it on someone that wasn’t a reflection in a mirror. “You listen to me, Howard Stark. This young woman has more grit and backbone than half the army of scared boys writing home to their mamas. Tell her about the program.” 

“The program. Criminy. It’s a highly experimental musculoskeletal enhancement.”

Eve raised her eyebrows in a silent question.

“I give you a series of elixirs and tonics, pump this chamber full of pure oxygen, you get in the chamber, you get big and strong. Like Betty over there.” He nodded at an animal cage in the corner of the room. 

Eve walked over and peeked in the cage. “Eek!” She jumped back in surprise. Howard gave Peggy a look that said “I told you so.” Eve marched back to the cage and leaned forward, her nose almost touching the bars. A rat that was the size of a large cat stared back at her. The rat’s legs were unreasonably muscled, and it definitely licked its chops while twitching its nose at her. “It’s… big,” she said. 

“Like I said, sweetheart, musculoskeletal enhancement. You stepping up into my magic chamber? Because if not, I have science to be getting on with.”

Eve gave Betty the rat a pensive look. “It’ll make me big? And strong? Will it make me mean?” 

Howard tugged on a lock of hair. “Yes, yes, and I don’t know. I don’t have the best test subjects to determine precisely the changes in personality the procedure may elicit. Betty was cranky before the experiment,” he offered in an optimistic tone. 

“I’ll do it.” Eve turned to Peggy and Howard. She peeled off her sweater, folded it carefully, and put it on a table. 

“Miss Rogers, I must confess that we have not tested this procedure on any human subjects yet. You would be the first. There are considerable risks, including the possibility of death.” Peggy stepped in front of her and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “There’s no shame in refusing and going back to a quiet life in Brooklyn. Even if the procedure is successful, I will be asking you to put yourself in danger, going overseas to fight in a war you needn’t be involved in.” 

“Bucky always says I don’t have the self-preservation sense God gave a gnat. I want to serve my country. This can do more good than drawing posters and buying bonds.” She took a steadying breath. “I’m ready.” 

Howard pulled his goggles down over his eyes. “If the lady is ready, let’s get this freight train rolling, shall we?” He mixed several concoctions in glass beakers. One smoked rather alarmingly when he added a clear liquid to it. Another was a bright mossy green. Howard handed Eve a pair of goggles and the beaker of green liquid. 

She settled the goggles on her face, they were tight and smelled musty. “Here’s luck.” She held the beaker up and drank it down in one long swig. It tasted poisonous and smelled like the stench of rotten potatoes.

The last thing she was aware of before passing out was Howard catching her when she wobbled off her feet. He yelled something over his shoulder, like he was calling to someone.

The next thing she knew, the heavy lid of the iron chamber was lifting above her, and she was blinking against the lights of the basement laboratory. Eve looked down at herself. Her breasts (Lord in Heaven, her breasts!) strained against her white etamine shirt. Her skirt ended obscenely just below her knee. Her shirt cuffs were almost up to her elbows. It was a good thing she’d taken off her sweater, it would have been rended in two by the new breadth of her shoulders. 

“Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis,” Howard muttered in a low voice. 

Tendrils of panic curled through her stomach. Her limbs felt heavy, and her head lolled forward as Peggy grasped her wrists and pulled her up. Eve hated when she overheard people call her “a little slip of a thing,” but from the way Peggy braced her feet against the chamber to tug Eve up, she guessed she wouldn’t be hearing that any time soon. She felt like a child playing dress up in their mother’s clothes, except she was playing dress up in another body. 

Peggy looked her steadily in the eyes. “You’re doing real well, Miss Rogers. Just a little push up and you’ll be on your feet. It seems the procedure was quite—” she raked her eyes over Eve, “effective.” 

“I need to run some tests!” Howard interjected. “We have no idea if the procedure was effective until I get some measurements. I’ll need a baseline temp, she’ll have to lift some weights, blood pressure, can she go jogging, no, not like that, that won’t do.” Howard chewed absently on the metal earpiece of his eyeglasses while he muttered to himself, stalking around the room and rummaging with his free hand for medical implements. 

Another man sat observing them across the room. He looked shell shocked at Eve’s appearance. He cleared his throat and held a stethoscope up. “I believe a doctor, a _medical_ doctor,” he added as Howard’s mouth opened, “should examine the young lady.” He got to his feet, wincing as he straightened. He held his hand out politely as he approached Eve, “Doctor Abraham Erskine, my dear.” 

“Pleased to meet you,” Eve said, shaking his hand. 

“The pleasure is all mine.” He gave her a gentle smile. “I developed the green elixir, still working on improvements to the smell and taste.” 

Eve scrunched her nose at the memory of the noxious elixir. “It could use some work, doc.” 

Howard and Abraham tested every possible vital sign Eve could have, and barely concealed their glee when it was clear that she had not only grown bigger, but she was impossibly strong, her reflexes lightning fast, and her endurance better than that of any men they’d observed on the Army grounds. Night had long since fallen by the time Eve and Peggy left the lab. 

“Well, Miss Rogers. You’ve done extraordinarily well. Go home and get some rest, I’ll be in touch over the next few days with your first assignment.” Peggy gave her smile and a brief hug, and walked off into the brisk New York night. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Gertrude Stein poem- Work Again (from Geography & Plays). 
> 
> My knowledge of World War One is not deep, and I'm going to be taking some liberties with history as I go. 
> 
> As always, my deepest thanks to [Tenillypo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenillypo/pseuds/Tenillypo) for beta-ing.


End file.
